THE TOOTH FAIRY IS COMING
“Open your mouth, Rosie,” I told her. I peered inside.
“My two bottom teeth are wobbly,” she said. I caught my breath. Surely not. She stuck her finger in her mouth and wiggled one of her teeth. They were indeed wobbly. I couldn’t believe it. Tooth fairy already?
She’s my baby. I’m not ready for this. Her brother didn’t lose his first tooth till he was nearly seven. She’s not even six yet. How can she be ready for that? She’s my baby. She’s so tiny and petite…maybe I’m forgetting that she’s growing up. Sure, she can construct a sentence a ten year old would be proud of, but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to lose teeth…does it? I mean, she still has the occasional toilet accident. She’s not ready to lose teeth yet, is she? How can she have grown up so fast? She’s my baby!
Change. Sometimes it catches us totally by surprise. I don’t mind change most of the time, I just need time to adjust. I need to process it, examine it from all angles. I’m holding onto these last few precious weeks of unstructured childhood before Rosie goes to school. Life will change forever for her then. And for me. My days of having a child at home full time will be over. Surely that deserves a moment or two of reflective grief before we move on with the next phase of our lives.
Mum will become less essential to every moment of the day. Sure, she will have TD at school with her…(and I hope they will get along and the teachers won’t have to sort out any squabbles!), but her beautiful innocence will be replaced by a knowledge of the wider world, and that’s sad. It’s one of the things I dread the most, but it’s inevitable. No longer will she regard Mum as the centre of her world. No longer will she come out with totally innocent but hilarious sayings, and incorrect uses of words that make me smile where she can’t see me. Her friends will become a huge part of her world, and that’s as it should be. She will change, and I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that yet. I can see her in my mind, her innocent little face looking up at me, intensely earnest, big brown eyes completely serious as she relates some tale from her world that is, at that moment, the most important matter on the earth. I will miss that. I will miss the incessant chatter that makes it impossible to get through any task that requires thought. I will miss her presence in the kitchen as she eagerly helps me so she can “learn to cook.” And she’s actually becoming quite a good help. She can peel a boiled egg, grate a carrot, and slice a cucumber into cubes. My patience in the beginning of this process (very trying it was at times, with two kids at the kitchen bench, needing close supervision!) is beginning to pay off – and now she’s leaving me for the wider world. It’s a bittersweet ache that many mums are all too familiar with. And as for the tooth fairy, well, maybe I’ll have to shoot it. I’m not ready for it to make off with her teeth yet.
I am so grateful that I have been able to raise my children myself. I realize that for some mums, this is not possible, or perhaps not desirable. But for me, it has been possible, even though I never thought it would be. The most important task in my life has been to shape their growing characters for good. We are not done yet. But had I not had those first few years with them, the task might be well nigh impossible by now. From learning to share, and be obedient, they have moved on to learning to think of others and be kind and helpful. To be givers rather than takers. There are still many peaks of learning ahead, and still many days when we all fail and fall and have to get back on track again. None of us is perfect.
I had a surprise the other day. So did the kids. We were on our way home from holidays. We’d been away for two weeks, and there was no fresh food in the house, so we stopped in town to get some fruit and vegies before we came home. The kids got out, and in typical fashion (having long ago befriended the shop owners!), they set to work, trying to be helpful. They stacked up cartons of bottled water that had got into a mess. They rearranged the trolleys by the door. They handed baskets and trolleys to incoming customers. I didn’t take much notice, other than checking that they were safe from time to time – I was just glad they were being useful rather than running around!
I finished my shopping and we went to the car. The kids got in and I took the trolley back. Just as I was about to get in, a lady appeared on the other side of the car.
“Are these the kids who were so helpful?” she asked. “I thought they must have been the owner’s kids. Is it ok if I give them something?” I said yes, and she tapped on TD’s window.
“Here’s a dollar for you, and one for your sister,” she said, handing the coins through the window. “I really appreciated how helpful you were.” We managed to stammer out a thank you, and then she was gone. I was about to get in the car when the shop employee came out.
“Your kids were really helpful,” he said. “It saved me some work, tidying up – are they allowed to have some lollies?” I said yes.
“Come and choose some for them,” he said. I followed him back into the shop and chose them a packet of jelly snakes (put away for TD’s birthday – yes, I know, mean mum! Lollies are for special occasions in our house!), and thanked him.
“I appreciated their help,” he said. “One day they’ll get a job here!”
It’s nice to see that, just for one moment, the years of training have shone through, and enabled them to brighten the day of someone else. (And yes, since then, there have been squabbles and forgettable moments, but just for that one moment, they remembered).
Back to the tooth fairy. Last night, Rosie opened her mouth, and I caught a glimpse of…something unusual.
“Let me have a look in your mouth, Rosie,” I told her. She obligingly opened it. And there they were. Two big teeth poking up behind the baby ones. She has such tiny baby teeth. Perfect little white pearls. I wondered how these big choppers are going to fit. They look like they will take up her whole mouth. Each of those tiny little baby teeth represents weeks of disturbed sleep. Restless, grizzly days. And sickness. Every time she got a new tooth, she would come down with some kind of sickness. She was a terrible teether. Enough to frighten the tooth fairy away!
And then it all fell into place. The sudden development of ear pain while we were away over Christmas – completely out of the blue. No warning whatsoever. A restless night, disturbed by pain. Better in the morning, only to begin vomiting that evening. Driving all over Canberra to attend an after hours doctor, then rushing across the city to catch the late night chemist before it shut. A burst eardrum, they said. Out of the blue. Or was it? It just happened to coincide with the arrival of two new teeth. Obviously, some things DON’T change.
Now I’m off to set a trap for the tooth fairy…